Railway Junction near Bois-Colombes

Bois-Colombes owed its existence to the trains. Northwest of Paris, it was a corner of Colombes that filled up with houses once the line gave it a station, and it became a commune in its own right only in 1896, about ten years after this was painted. Signac knew the junction as a passenger, crossing it on his way out from Paris to see his mother in Asnières. He painted it from behind a fence, looking at the small hut of the man who worked the points and the rails fanning out past it. Railways were a favoured modern subject in those years, Monet most of all. The colour here stays in muted greys and greens, brushed on broadly, a long way from the bright canvases Signac would later be known for.